Putin miscalculated with Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has miscalculated.
Putin, who apparently thought he could slice Ukraine into manageable bits of “sausage” over a period of weeks or months, now finds himself with no control over the events he has set in motion.
Give a bunch of yahoos a bunch of weapons, and you’d better forget about controlling them.
That’s the lesson Putin is learning in the wake of last week’s missile strike on a Malaysian airliner.
It may have seemed like a good idea to flex Russian muscle and take back Crimea. It may have seemed politically popular to entice other eastern oblasts of Ukraine to break away.
But once you give a bunch of thugs — and these appear to be thugs and hooligans — dangerous weaponry, then stir up the rhetoric so that the armed separatists think you’ll go to the wall for them, one shouldn’t be surprised when things spiral out of control.
Spiraling out of control might as well have been the stated strategy as far as Russia is concerned.
Is it likely that the missile launcher used to shoot down the Malaysian airliner came from Russia? Of course.
Is it likely that Russia either provided training or personnel to operate the missile launcher?
Of course.
By doing those things, did the Kremlin lose control of dangerous weaponry in a volatile situation?
You bet.
Sad as the loss of life from the Malaysian airliner is, this is not so much a matter of villainy as it is incompetence.
Putin moved impetuously into Ukraine and Crimea. Russia turned over killing machines to untrained civilians, then turned up the rhetoric machine to inflame emotions and regional politics.
Is it any wonder something horrible happened? The wonder is that it took so long for something horrible to happen.
The Kremlin — and Putin personally — miscalculated. The price tag, in terms of lost life, is staggering.
The next step, on Putin’s part, is difficult to calculate. —J.R.[[In-content Ad]]